Amish Friendship Bread - Thank You Morgan!

This is kind of like an eatable chain letter.  It was fun project and one of my more successful ones (I guess since I didn’t choose it, it chose me...thanks Morgan!)  The bread is more like cakey bread very moist.  I bet you could easily make muffins out of the batter rather than loaves.  But, as this was my first time, I stuck to the plan and instructions that were given to me.   When I read through the recipe, I turned my nose up at the vanilla pudding mix, but I think it helped with the flavor.  The original recipe I was given included cinnamon and nuts...but I did alter that here since I don’t like cinnamon unless it’s in apple pie and didn’t have any nuts.  I gave away 2 of my starters to friends and kept 1 since everyone really did like the “bread”.  The only thing would caution is that if you are hanging around in the kitchen like I tend to do you could become startled if the plastic container lid pops open with a vengeance as the yeast starts yeasting or whatever the chemical process is called.  Sounded like a damn gun went off in the kitchen my heart skipped a beat.  Other than that follow the rules below and you’ll end up with some pretty nice cakey bread stuff to eat.

1 package active dry yeast

1/4 cup warm water (110°F)

1 cup all-purpose flour 


1 cup granulated sugar


1 cup warm milk (110°F)

Pour warm water over yeast to dissolve in a medium glass or plastic bowl.  Stir well.  Sift flour and sugar together in another bowl glass or plastic bowl.  Add yeast starter and milk stirring well to remove any lumps that form.  This is day one of your starter.

Okay so now what you do is this...

Days 2-5: stir starter

Day 6:  add 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of milk.  Stir

Days 7-9:  stir starter

Day 10:  add 1-cup flour, 1-cup sugar and 1-cup milk.  Stir and measure out 3 cups (for 3 lucky friends) and place their starter in plastic containers.  Now you get to make your bread with your remaining starter/batter

1-cup canola oil

½ cup milk

3 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups flour

1-cup sugar

1 ½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 box (5.1oz) vanilla pudding

1 ½ cups chocolate pieces

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Grease two loaf pans and sprinkle with sugar tapping out any excess.

Sift dry ingredients together in a medium bowl.  Add oil, milk, eggs and vanilla to remaining starter/batter in a separate bowl.  Mix well.  Add dry ingredients to batter and stir well to remove any lumps.  Pour batter into prepared pans and bake for approximately 1 hour or until a tester inserted comes out clean.  Do not over bake.

Cool on racks for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely. 

Comments

[Michelle Settle]

This looks beautiful! I wonder how I could incorporate banana into this? My secret for keeping the chips and nuts from sitting at the bottom is to dust them very lightly with flour before stirring in. I think I will have my daughter start some fo this for friends of hers that like to cook and are sitting home this summer!